The Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) is a standard developed for cable data communications. The DOCSIS standard has been enhanced to support telephony and other real time services. Wireless networks are becoming more widely used as a general-purpose connectivity alternative for a broad range of data communication applications. Recently, some wireless network specifications have adopted the DOCSIS Media Access Control (MAC) layer.
The DOCSIS MAC utilizes a time division multiple access (TDMA) technique to facilitate communications between cable modems and the Cable Modem Termination System (CMTS), or headend, in the “upstream” path. DOCSIS TDMA access is accomplished by assigning upstream time slots within which cable modems transmit their messages to the headend. Each timeslot granted to a modem is an integer number of minislots, which are the basic medium access control (MAC) timing unit for allocation and granting TDMA slots. In DOCSIS, minislot timing is derived from the MAC global time reference clock, such that each minislot begins and ends upon a rising edge of the clock.
The DOCSIS MAC transmits a 32 bit timestamp message derived from the 10.24 MHz global time reference at the CMTS in the dowstream to all subscribers for the purpose of upstream transmission synchronization. Subscriber modems use this timestamp message to produce a local version of the global time reference that is synchronized to the CMTS clock. The technique for producing the local clock is called a Timestamp Recovery Circuit (TRC). Divisions of the derived 10.24 MHz clock represent both symbol times and minislot boundaries on the upstream channel. Therefore, all upstream timing is related to the 10.24 MHz clock. Additionally, each upstream minislot is a power-of-two number of the 10.24 MHz reference intervals in duration. Moreover, all of the allowed upstream symbol rates are power-of-two sub-multiples of the 10.24 MHz rate. Thus, an integer number of transmitted symbols fit into a minislot for all allowed symbol rates.
An additional benefit to using the 10.24 MHz clock is that it is compatible with telephony sample and frame rates. Assuming that the smallest reasonable upstream frame interval for isochronous telephony is 5 ms, there will always be an integer number of minislot in a frame. Also, since 10.24 MHz is an integer multiple of 8 KHz, the global reference clock can be used to derive a telephony sampling clock with the use of simple binary counters. Thus, the frame interval and sampling clock can lock to the upstream transmit opportunities insuring that sample buffers will not overflow or underflow.
In the Broadband Wireless Internet Forum (BWIF) Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) implementation the power-of-two timestamp to minislot relationship does not hold. Each minislot is made up of a single OFDM symbol and its cyclic prefix. The burst times for these OFDM minislots, for various system sample rates, are shown in Table 1. Note that there is no convienent power of 2 relationship to a 10.24 MHz time base.
In this environment, the 10.24 MHz clock is replaced with a global timing reference related to the OFDM minislot. For a 24 MHz sample rate system a 5.33 MHz global time clock is used (i.e., Fs/4.5 where, the sampling frequency, Fs is 24 MHz). This clock has the desired effect of preserving the power-of-two relationship between the minislot time and the global reference clock.
In an isochronous voice transmission environment, it is desirable to grant a modem a transmission opportunity for a given integer number of voice samples. Since the voice sample rate is 8 KHz, a common interval for framing is 10 ms. Other intervals related to 10 ms are sometimes used, including 5 ms and 30 ms for some voice CODEC's. However, with the 5.33 MHz clock, an integer number of minislots no longer fit into a 10 ms interval. The frame size ends up being slightly shorter or slightly longer than 10 ms. Also, the telephony sample clock can no longer be generated from the global reference clock with a straightforward binary counter.
Therefore, there is a need for a system and method to transmit isochronous voice over wireless networks that can utilize the existing BWIF OFDM infrastructure without substantial and costly changes.